Ron Johnson was seen as the genius behind the Apple store and man who made Target chic. His failure at J.C. Penney is a lesson to CEOs driving change.

Since he was plucked from Apple Inc. to lead the ailing J.C. Penney department store empire in the U.S., retailers and analysts have been following CEO Ron Johnson the way sports fans follow favourite players.

Johnson is the man who helped make Target chic, signing famed architect Michael Graves to design housewares for the discount retailer. He was the man behind the Apple store, temples of white, wood floors and glass where product is king and revenue per square foot averages $6,000.

He did it by being audacious.

It’s why he succeeded and it’s why he failed.

“Great ideas are sometimes that, just great ideas,” said George Minakakis, former general manager Canada and CEO, greater China, for eyewear retailer Luxottica Group, and author of Last Retailer Standing, Relevant Leadership, Relevant Brand.

“Just launching a cultural change like that never really works, not in the format of a large organization with so many moving parts in retail.”

Critics say Johnson tried to do too much too fast, alienating customers by moving from a deep discount culture to “fair and square” pricing and trying to move the brand too upscale.

The stock has plunged more than 50 per cent in a year and 19,000 J.C. Penney workers have lost their jobs.

Johnson brought in dozens of new brands, including Joseph Mimran’s Joe Fresh, which debuted in 683 J.C. Penney locations in March, as stores within the stores.

A spokesman for Loblaw Companies Limited, which owns Joe Fresh, said the relationship will continue under J.C. Penney’s new CEO, Mike Ullman, who headed J.C. Penney before Johnson took over.

“Our performance with J.C. Penney so far has been better than we expected it would be,” said Julija Hunter.

Johnson was hired in November 2011 to lead what was regarded as a dowdy brand aimed a shrinking middle class.

In June, 2011, Sears Canada CEO Calvin McDonald was hired from Loblaw Companies Ltd. to lead what was regarded as a dowdy brand aimed at a shrinking middle class.

But whereas Johnson has gone down in flames, McDonald is claiming small victories and moving forward with purpose when testing confirms his retail hunches.

He feels sympathy for Johnson, because he understands perhaps as well as Johnson does now, that a retail empire can’t be turned on a dime.

“When businesses over a long period of time perform poorly, those ones need a transformation, the business is broken. They can’t be fixed within quarters,” McDonald said Tuesday.

He has a three-year plan for Sears, which he launched in January 2012. Since then, three stores in prime locations in Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa have been closed. The needle on same-store-sales hasn’t improved much, but there has been no hemorrhaging as there was at J.C. Penney — revenue dropped 25 per cent in a single quarter after Johnson took over.

And there have been improvements in areas that McDonald has targeted: appliances, mattresses, apparel, a bigger and better selection for parents with babies and young children, adding Carter’s and Osh Kosh brands in February.

A big part of that plan is getting the board of directors, the customers and staff onboard with the changes, McDonald said.

“We approached it as an evolution, not a revolution. We didn’t want to alienate our customers, but we had new customers we wanted to build relationships with.

Despite the fact that Johnson had clearly bungled the rebranding, his ouster on Tuesday was something of a shock.

Retail analyst William Frohnhoefer at BTIG Research said while Johnson’s ouster didn’t surprise observers; the timing of the move seems either too late or too early.

“Too late, because the dismal 2012 results, including the 41.7 per cent negative comp, appeared to be the perfect time for a concerned board to press the eject button. Too early, because once the board reaffirmed their commitment to Johnson in the aftermath of those earnings, it looked like the board was waiting for key initiatives undertaken in the first quarter to play out before their rendered their final verdict.

“Because of the awkward timing, the board’s action seems ambiguous, halfhearted. The ambiguity is compounded by the choice of a replacement.”

McDonald, if the board sticks with him, will come to the end of his three-year promise in the winter of 2015, unless the competition from incoming U.S. retailers like Target ends it first.

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